Monday, December 01, 2014

Guest Post by Anjo Bordell

Anjo Bordell has
lived in Shanghai, China since 2007. He completed his debut novel Default in the summer of 2014, and
describes it as “half expat novel, half great American adventure.” It is
available here
on Amazon.

Please sign up for
his newsletter, a hilarious and
informative monthly dispatch from Shanghai with photos and short podcasts.

This lengthy guest
post is also available as a (very entertaining) podcast. Click here
for the audio download or here
for the player. Pro tip: Listen to
the podcast while reading along and clicking the links! Click here
for the Kindle version of Writing an
Expat Novel.

Good answer. I’d roundhouse that geezer until he was on life
support. After his crimes of shooting unarmed POWs in the face and having
written The Sun Also Rises, he’s left
me no choice. “Blimey, old chap! Another apéritif?”
Screw you, old timer. “Café crème?” Smack! And then he had the audacity to
Cobain himself on the same day Céline died. Who made the front page? The genius? No, the murderer, the so-called
expat novelist.

Maybe the escapades of “lost” interwar boozers yapping about
irrelevant nonsense made for great expat writing in the 1920s, but these days,
churning out something so inexcusably mundane should earn you an immediate
ticket to permanent obscurity.

Brass Tacks, Not
Bullshit

Say what you want about Shanghai,
this magnificent city of the
future where much of my novel Default
is set, but it is anything but mundane. Indeed, China (and most of Asia) offers
an endless supply of situations, settings, and characters so bizarre and
morbidly fascinating that the writer who finds himself here will soon realize
he has enough material to write a new book every week. And this is the
perspective from which this broadside
has been written—an American white boy novelizing from the teeming
depths of Shanghai. Not in Shanghai? Lucky you. Just apply what I’m saying to
the context of stories from anywhere. And regardless of where you’re writing
from or about, always remember that modern readers don’t want a contemporary
rehash of The Sun Also Rises. I
don’t, anyway. The original was bad enough.

With so much
compelling madness going on around him,
the crafty expat novelist knows
better than to defile his book with talk of Starbucks
and iCrap, and the boring banter of bourgeois baloney. Shanghai is chock-full of that, by the way. Fiction fans are
seeking escape, and the tedium of stateside suburbia already offers a generous
bounty of these post-millennial plagues. People want “foreign” and “exotic,”
not KFC and Facebook. They want dark alleys and intrigue, not bonbons and Louis
Vuitton. Uncertainty and suspense, not silly, superficial romances.

Speaking of which, I could be terribly mistaken about all of
this, as evidenced by the massive success of a book like Eat, Pray, Love, which tells of the pseudo-spiritual
pseudo-awakening of a globe-trotting narcissist searching for pseudo-happiness.
Yes, it’s a memoir, but you get the idea. I say we’ve endured enough of this
inconsequential claptrap, the middle class musings of an ungrateful bore. What
the world needs is straight talk, unencumbered by the poisons of political
correctness. Boots on the ground, both barrels. Brass tacks, not bullshit.

You see a lot of both when living abroad, and much of the BS
that’s been festering in your head will get rewired into something approaching
truth. Or at least a new angle, a different lens through which many assumptions
are corrected, refocused, and understood anew.

Travel
is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people
need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and
things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all
one's lifetime.

So says Mark Twain. I understand the sentiment, but it’s
only partly true. Yes, Americans in particular would do well to broaden their
horizons, and that’s exactly what happens when you move overseas. But see what
a stint in a country like China does for your “wholesome, charitable views.”
Prejudice and bigotry? Don’t get me started. Sometimes we’re enlightened to the
point that it’s worse than the BS we’ve been fed all our lives.

These charitable views apply not only to your host country,
but even more so to the country you’ve bailed. You might think “bailed” is an
exaggeration, but as your passport fills with stamps and stickers in languages
other than your own, you come to realize that is exactly what you’ve done. And
for good reason.

Many of us had the feeling we’d been living ringside in some kind of neo-Weimar freak show
long before we “bailed.” But now, the view from outside the fence is so much
more objective and sharp, like an unstable image on an old TV made clear with a
good slap. This is the true value of witnessing the world with long-term
immersion in a parallel universe, an alternate reality from which our notions
and judgments of our personal history, opinions, culture, and general way of
thinking get a tune-up, a recalibration that can neither be avoided nor
reversed.

Ringside: the perfect way to describe the foreigner’s life
in Shanghai. But it’s a different kind of circus, one we learn to tolerate as
simple annoyance or entertainment. Trivial shenanigans compared to what we’ve
escaped, which, as we confide among ourselves, can only be described as daily indications
of the imminent downfall of the West.

From my novel Default:

We
were well past the days when, if asked to describe the future, one would
conjure up images of bright blue skies with cotton clouds and smiling
Norwegians flying around in puttering air cars. But we hadn’t yet descended to
the point we’ve reached today when, if asked the same question, one either
comes up blank or flat-out refuses to answer, cursing you for ruining the
entire day by having to think of such terrible things.

Pending apocalypse or not, the need for a respite can get
the best of even the most hardened expat in the form of a round-trip ticket to
the West. Not everyone is immediately appalled at what they see during the rare
vacation back home, and I will admit to the usual symptoms of staring
open-mouthed at blue
skies or at the stars at night. Proper climate control and big fat steaks.
Unfettered, blazing internet, blue eyes, and boobs. But the high quickly fades,
and the creeps begin. Old hang-ups and phobias, even revulsion and
fear—reminders that we’ve become outsiders in our own countries, and that even
short, infrequent visits are more than enough. Further reminiscing grows futile
as we realize the cursory perks of home aren’t really the nostalgia we’d
thought we were looking forward to, but rather confirmation, closure of
everything we’ve left behind.

Temperaments vary, of course, and not all expats have such a
negative reaction to a first-world vacation. Some of my friends reached their
limits long ago, bought one-way tickets west, and bailed China for good, vowing
never to return. But we have all suffered similar misconceptions born from our
diverse starting points, and by assuming some risk and seeking a little
adventure, we have gained invaluable insight that will serve us well no matter
where we end up, especially those of us who fancy ourselves writers.

Characters and
Foreign Environments

Jaded businessmen, stoned engineers, ultra-capitalists.
Losers, drunks, deadbeats, and the occasional drifter turned novelist. An
all-star cast of post-imperialists, unrepentant and unapologetic. Nothing
two-dimensional here, no boring dialogue or lack of at least mild intrigue.
Just pay attention and your novel writes itself. Up against the wall of an
unpredictable alien environment, these characters, these self-imposed exiles—

Oh, what’s this? A knock at the door. My friend from down
the hall, the Spanish architect. I don’t like the haggard look on his face.
Puts me off my writing game. “Everything alright?” I say. Urgent news. Big
changes coming soon. He’s just learned that all the foreigners in the building
have to scram. “Who told you that goddam lie?” He says he heard it from the
maintenance man. “Seems a little far-fetched, since I just spoke with him about
the pipes and he didn’t say a word about this!” He asks me if I’ve all of a
sudden learned Chinese. I tell him that’s preposterous. He gives me a look that
says, “I’ll let you figure that one out for yourself.”

The Texan next door sticks out his head. A rare scene—he and
the Spaniard going at it in rapid-fire Chinese. I hold up my hands and point to
my face. They get the idea and switch to English.

“The landlord told me it was because of renovations. I
figured it’s because I’m black.”

“Renovations?” says the Spaniard. “Remember those soldiers
we saw snooping around last week? Apparently, the People’s Liberation Army just
liberated this building. So
guess who they don’t want around anymore?”

“Blacks?”

“Any of us,” I say. “How much time do we have?”

“Nobody knows,” says the Spaniard.

Tex has heard enough. He slams his door. The Spaniard and I
listen for a few seconds at the cursing and crashing inside the Texan’s
apartment.

I wouldn’t mind having a go myself about now. My face is
straight, but I’m seething inside. For weeks I’ve been anticipating diving into
my second novel in my little concrete
cave. So much has been written here already. History, greatness! Oh, but my
passport says otherwise. Even though I’ve faithfully paid a fistful of redbacks
every month for four years (without complaint!), this dirty foreigner’s money
is no longer good.

What a shame to have to leave. And for the most laughable of reasons. A hate crime,
where I’m from. Shanghai—city of the future, my ass! It might make sense if
they’d simply said they didn’t like the looks of me, or had tracked me down
after the release of Default. “We no
like how you portray our city like circus!” Truth be told, I tried to be as
fair and balanced as reasonably possible. But in Book Two, the gloves come off.

Things could be worse, I suppose. I could have been
deported—again. Back in 2008, they were taking their Olympic debutante ball very seriously. Thousands of us were
caught in a dragnet of nationalistic paranoia, and promptly returned to sender.
Lesson learned? Of course not. Most of us came back as soon as we could.
Gluttons for nonsense. Hedonists, lechers, powerless against our impulses and
the allure of the Orient. The perfect destination for a writer. China—a never
ending source of material so ridiculous that most of it is unusable because no
one would believe it.

Kicked out by these miserable racists! Must try to stay
positive. A lot of good that’s ever done. I’ve even tried to maintain a
semblance of integrity. And it’s been years since I’ve had to explain to some
very unfriendly cops exactly from where and whom my sketchy work visas had been
issued. No more. The straight and narrow! Playing by the rules, and then this happens. Indeed, the thanks
I get for putting myself in the poor house writing my novel. Reaping the many
rewards.

The Spaniard interrupts my mumbling rant. He says something
about our deposits. I give him a look. He takes a step back. I tell him the
landlord and the maintenance man are having a laugh in the KTV downstairs,
blowing our deposits on ketamine and hookers.

“Ketamine?” he says. “From carrots?”

“Hmm . . .”

I’m thinking about the move. Guess I’ll start looking for a
place as soon as I knock out this post. Maybe somewhere near work. Commuting is
no way to live. But oh, the dread of moving to Zhabei. Sure, the rent is cheap, but for
good goddam reason. Mile after mile of tenement
blight, smog, and phlegm. But I’ll save some cash. A couple more years and
I’ll be able to bail China for good, vowing never to return.

See what I’m saying? Life is loose. Disaster can strike at
any minute. Periodic crackdowns on this or that. Bus fires, building fires,
train wrecks, war. Immigration snafus! Graft, theft, greed, general
incompetence that can blow a good plan to smithereens. Thugs and cops could
burst into your brothel
suite right at the moment of truth. Poison milk and gutter oil. SARS, bird flu,
swine flu, and this most recent affliction: not being Chinese.

Bright side, Bordell! A minor issue in the grand scheme. At
least it got me writing again. I was hopelessly stuck, but now I can show you
exactly what I’m talking about. Foreign environments can explode in your face
without notice, leaving the intrepid novelist, once he’s calmed down, with a
whole new chapter.

Where was I . . . Ah, I was about to tell you more about all
the lovely folks you come across in this haphazard habitat. And the locals—don’t
get me started. All smiles
and emphatic bows
until the president
makes some offhand remark about the supposed sovereignty of Taiwan. Bite your
tongue, sir, for it is the lowly expat who pays the price of your geopolitical
indiscretions! Today, just eviction. But tomorrow, who knows? The gulag? We
won’t stand for it!

We came here for opportunity and adventure. And when the
time is right, we’d like to leave with happy endings and fistfuls of green. No
desire for a last-minute chopper escape from the roof of the Ritz. But can you
imagine? This lot? Look at us, so varied, so colorful—characters with personas
as unique and rare as our very
DNA. The Turk, the Dane, the Mad Belgian. The Pope, the Queen, Sexy Barkeep.
The Spaniard . . .

He’s shaking his head, about to say something else as I shut
the door.

Equipment

Hardly anyone uses a typewriter anymore, that time-honored
battle ax on which countless of our favorite books were written. But the
essence and vigor within that industrial clamor can still be summoned by typing
on my weapon of choice: the
mechanical keyboard. Invest in eternity—big and clunky, blue switches if
possible. Anything worth doing!

I doubt much of any significance has ever been written on
cheap, effeminate tap pads. Most garbage they sell these days are so
metrosexual, so anemic, so . . . bloodless. Mac? Degenerate nonsense!
Manicured, silent little widgets, so dainty and pale, engineered for maximum
emasculation. Candy-coated impotence, unfit for writing even the most trivial
of emails.

But clackety-clack! You know what that is? The sound of your
roommates kicking you to the curb, your wife rescinding her vows. Progress,
productivity—the sound of your novel being written. Noise, glorious noise! Like
the jackhammers outside my window. And you, your words, your scathing
indictments—take another swig of Chivas as you write your stories in maddening,
explosive keystrokes, subversive prose roaring across the page—evidence of your
existence, proof of your creative power, your vitality, your final purpose.

Much of my novel was first written with old fashioned pen
and paper. I recommend finding a pen you like and buying
five of them and fifteen refills.

About this pen and paper . . . As you cut the lights before
bed, make absolutely sure that your writing tools are within easy reach. I have
a notebook and pen assigned to this post, never to leave my bedside except when
transcribing the pages on my computer with my noisy keyboard. (A separate
notebook and pen(s) are in my bag at all times.)

Very important: As we shut our eyes, we must be ready for
those beautiful checkmates and ingenious plot twists to fall from the heavens
into our pre-sleep subconscious. These are lucky breaks, offerings bestowed
upon us from the cosmos of creation that’s always swirling around us. We must
treat these gifts accordingly. Their value is immense and the price is merely
switching the light back on and putting pen to paper.

We’ve all told ourselves at some point that “this is such an
obviously grand maneuver that
only an idiot would forget it by morning.” Then back to sleep, smiling to
ourselves at how incredible our ideas are and how swimmingly our book is coming
along. And then halfway through the next day we’re vaguely aware that there was
something important we should have remembered. I can’t speak for everyone, but
I never remember. Once I realized how indispensable were these bedtime
brainstorms, I never chose sleep over inspiration again. And had I allowed
laziness to prevail, my book would have been far inferior to what it has
become, or would never have even been completed.

Routine

Everyone does his
own thing. But my life is so impossibly fascinating that I’m sure you’re just
dying to know about my personal writing routine.

China is loud, even
louder than my keyboard, especially ground zero in a mess like Shanghai,
and even more especially with the busy intersection
below my window. I’m used to it by now, with two notable exceptions: the curse
of the hammer
drill, and the old man outside, street level across the way, who plays the instrumental
theme to Titanic on infinite loop
on his little radio made for old deaf people. Even with all the traffic, bus
horns, shouting, sirens, and street cleaners, I can hear that old man’s radio
as clearly as if it were sitting on my desk. And that song is really, really
annoying. But God bless him. Haven’t
seen him in a while. Hope he’s okay.

I can write during the day, but it’s not optimal. I’m most productive
in the hours before the sun shows up for its usual morning struggle against
Shanghai’s atmospheric filth.
If I get to bed on time, around 9pm, I’ll be up at four. I’ll drink half a
liter of warm water with the juice of two lemons. (No Chinese hocus pocus here. I’m worried about kidney
stones. Once was enough.) Then a steaming
mug of Bulletproof coffee and half a pack of Reds. Coffee is one thing. Bulletproof
is another. It should be the standard breakfast of writing champions
everywhere.

Civilization
is quiet, and only those of us who have been deprived of the relative
noiselessness to which we are accustomed can fully appreciate it. An early start
with a clear head ensures the best conditions from which imagination can burst
like a supernova through the splendor of silence. I can write full tilt until
the bar girls come home at 5:30, tramping up the steps and chatting down the
hall, finally returning my solitude with the slamming of their apartment doors.
The sky brightens, a
thousand buildings come into view, traffic increases, and I’m done by 6:30,
maybe 8:00 on weekends.

A few hours of daily stress cripples my creativity, so
afternoons are less productive. Sometimes I’ll spend three hours on one lousy
paragraph, cursing out loud my hermitic calling, disgusted with the entire
situation, and wondering if fifteen stories is high enough for an
effective cure.

I’ve tried writing in coffee shops. Of the 100k-plus in this
city, I’ve found a couple of decent spots, with soft music and comfortable
chairs. But like a lot of places in Shanghai, they vanished without notice,
were gutted, and a week later rechristened as real estate offices or banks.
I’ve tried a few others, but even when empty, the Whitney Houston and Kenny
effin’ G. blasting through the speakers got old in under a minute. I don't
bother anymore, resigning myself to writing at home in my dilapidated dugout.
You should see these digs.
Most people would be appalled if they saw the conditions in which I live and
write. They'd buy my book out of head-shaking
pity. I can't even bring local guests here. I've learned my lesson with that. And
now that I’m getting the boot, things are about to get a lot worse.

But anyway, I like a view. Not that the view I have now is
so great, but
it’s something. Distance in front of me, an expanse to absorb my stares. And there’s a certain third-world urban loathing in my
surroundings that keeps me in check. I fear being mesmerized by a better
environment. A more picturesque setting, like a misty Irish coastline or a
panorama of Rockies, could sap my ability to write with such caustic mockery.
My conscience might not allow it. The devious creativity on which I depend
might turn soft and sentimental, and this is not a risk I am prepared to take. Like it matters. Barely a buck to my name. So,
for now at least, Shanghai it is.

Distractions

I don’t mind the odd,
unplanned distraction,
as long as it’s entertaining. Like the occasional fist
fight in the street below,
or fireworks
going off in my face, provided
it isn’t during Chinese
New Year, when the novelty of fireworks wears off after the first of many
24-hour periods of uninterrupted incoming. And even that is preferable to the hammer drill and the old man’s
radio.

The internet isn't too much of a distraction for me,
especially in China, where the blood-boiling ritual of connecting to the
outside world is far more
distracting than the would-be
content. But mobile messaging apps will kill
your productivity. I've had to quit chat groups altogether because I couldn’t
get anything done. It isn’t so much the time that’s stolen, but your attention
span, which will eventually be reduced to a generous five seconds. And it's not enough to merely put
down the phone, because you’ll still have that constant urge to check what new
hilarious and very important messages have been posted, and how you can
contribute to such earth-shattering discussions. Cold turkey, friends. On par
with quitting smoking. And be ready for withdrawals—the shakes, depression, and
loneliness. But come deathbed regret day, I doubt you’ll be wanting to trade
all the books you’ve written for another animated meatspin. This is just my
experience, of course. If you can write your novel in five-second increments,
then by all means.

And TV is a bottomless black hole of time, soul, and productivity. Nothing
new here. They make excellent targets at the range.

Prestige

Steve Albini, sound engineer extraordinaire and peerless
champion of the analog medium, has said that if he were to cease presenting
bands with reels of magnetic tape documenting their grinding toil in the
studio, and instead were to simply hand over a digital file, then he would
“feel like a fraud.”

Indeed. And while “ebooks are forever,” as Lord Konrath
says, they’re about as prestigious as MP3s. On the fringe of physics, they
barely exist. The fruits of our struggle, years of drudgery, reduced to
faceless data. I hate telling people, after they learn of my novel, that it's
only available as a crappy digital file. Do I “feel like a fraud?” Not exactly,
but there is a certain dismissive sentiment, on both sides, that the author and
his work have been confined to amateur hour.

After all, any jackass can upload his miserable tripe to the
internet. Just like indie bands. But musicians showcase their true worth by
performing live, which is much more effective for gaining fans and income than
a lousy author’s website and feeble pleas to “buy now” and prayers that
unsuspecting readers will invest hours of their precious time reading your
book, actually liking it, and then telling ten thousand friends.

But yes, I have effectively bypassed the Manhattan puppet
masters and have therefore avoided years of low-crawling through broken glass.
And the money is already rolling in. All twelve dollars of it.

I gripe about our measly
digital files masquerading as “books,” but I concede that Amazon has done a remarkable
job with its development of the Kindle. I was a diehard, and they had skeptics
like me in mind when engineering this little device that may prove to be more profound and
game-changing than the so-called smartphone. I still revere the superiority of
paper books, but the Kindle is
a worthy second.

What about CreateSpace? My apologies, but if I were ever to
see my book in bound paper, I would never settle for less than a proper offset
printing. I’m very particular about presentation and quality, and with paper
books, only industry standard can satisfy my demands. Anything less would be
like watching a brilliantly shot movie on dusty old VHS. In mono. It’s hard for
me to enjoy the content when I’m being distracted by the inferior format. And I
would find it difficult to live with myself if I were to subject my readers to
standards beneath my own.

It’s not just me. Everyone knows there’s more status in
having a traditionally published book. But I suspect, as we all do, that this
lamenting of self-publishing’s lack of prestige will diminish in the coming
years as young readers, brought up with various devices in their faces at all
times, are less instilled with the pleasure of paper books, and will have
little nostalgia for these relics from prior generations.

But until this becomes “normal,” self-published Kindle
authors will be fighting an uphill battle of preconceived notions of
illegitimacy. This makes it all the more important that we are fanatics in our pursuit of excellence,
and that we refuse to settle for anything less. This is our responsibility to
ourselves and the poor reading
public, whether you’re writing an expat novel, a self-help book, or a dystopian epic about nuclear zombie . . .
lesbians.

Simple Things To
Avoid

I’ve never been much of a team player, but some of the rules
of our trade have been established for reasons that are incontestable.

“Ah, thank you, Bordell! How many books have you written?
One?”

Yes. But even so, I am well aware of certain foibles to
avoid, glaring weaknesses I sometimes see in the writing of even “properly”
published authors. I’m no expert. But the internet is. Just do a search for the
overuse of dialogue tags and LY-adverbs. How these infirmities have yet to be
eradicated is beyond me, but your writing will click up a notch by simply
reducing them to an acceptable level.

Flat characters and boring dialogue are common complaints of
dissatisfied reviewers. Remember this, and write accordingly. With an
international cast ranging from charismatic to shady to outright full of shit,
there is no excuse for flat, uninspiring discourse in an expat novel. Make your
dialogue realistic and interesting whether or not it’s actually “moving the
story forward.” Extra points if the reader laughs
out loud.

Keep in mind that your book needs to pass the expat
smell-test. Make sure you know, or at
least appear to know, what you’re talking about. And readers back home
might not notice the hackneyed accounts of over-tread foreign subject matter,
but people with experiences similar to your own might cringe. Some things are
inevitable, such as confusion resulting from the culture and language barrier. But use your judgment and try to avoid
the more wince-inducing clichés of the country in which your novel is set.

Watch the overuse of foreign words. My first draft had too
many Chinese terms, phrases, and street names scattered about. Then I realized
they added nothing to the story and were like unnecessary narrative speed
bumps. All but a very few got the ax. Of those remaining, if the meaning isn’t
immediately obvious, then it’s explained later, but not necessarily defined.
This is an important distinction, akin to “show don’t tell.” Explain the
meaning in the context of the story, or otherwise cleverly insert it into the
following dialogue.

I touched on this earlier—my disdain for the use of pop
culture terms and brand names, especially when related to our ubiquitous
connectivity. iPhones, Facebook, Twitter, selfies, YOLO, etc. Don’t
talk about this crap. In the interest of making your novel as timeless as
possible and not so immediately dated, be very careful with the use of these
timestamps of fleeting relevance. Mentioning Facebook is one thing. But imagine
having written your novel a few years earlier and your hero was using MySpace.
Or dialing up to CompuServe on
his 486 to do a Lycos search for PB Max on the World Wide Web.

Everything today is so transitory and cheap. Make your work
the exception. Ebooks are
forever, yes? Then we must write like we believe it. After all, I’m talking
about writing a novel here, not a blog post. The ebook format is flighty
enough. There is no need to make it even more throwaway. We should treat our
work with a sense of permanence, and avoid the mistake of choosing the low road
of our temporary culture, awash in gizmos, gadgets, and gimmicks. Because in
the space of one year, an otherwise timeless novel could become as irrelevant
as The Sun Also Rises.

Shortcuts and skimping will sabotage your efforts regardless
of what you’re trying to accomplish. Anything worth doing, remember? So don’t
skimp on your artwork! I went with awesomebookcovers.com and I think
the results are fantastic.
Note to Amazon: if our book covers are so important, then why has your pathetic
resizing algorithm destroyed my colors, eh? I’ll tell you what—sign up for the newsletter on my website and I’ll send you a
link for a downloadable poster. Print it out four feet across. It looks
amazing.

And if you're not going to hire an editor to wade through
your sloppy mess and turn it into something worthy of your good name, then you
are wasting your time as well as everyone else's. I didn’t skimp on Default, and I didn’t rest until I got
the results I wanted. And while readers might disagree on how many stars it
should receive for story and style, I am absolutely certain that no one will
lump my novel in with that contemporary scourge
of ebook self-publishing: the “tsunami of crap.”

Closing Argument

Expat or homebody, novelist or pamphleteer, we are all
witnesses to global changes of historic proportion. Whether it’s confrontation
between restive empires or the proliferation of this little device called the
Kindle, the Order is in transition, and these shifts in power are nothing short
of momentous.

Regardless of what the future holds for the victims of
international upheaval, I agree with Lord Konrath when he says there has never
been a better time to be a writer. And if you combine this with the
intoxication of an increasingly unstable yet readily travelable world, I’d say
it’s even more true for the expat novelist.

But there’s no Parris Island for this, no drill instructors
kicking our butts and violently molding us into professionals. It’s up to us to
lay on the hate, putting our miserable selves through this awful, desolate
gauntlet of writing, editing, publishing, and promotion.

Everyone has a “voice” now, for better or worse. Don’t waste
yours. We must do our part in breathing life back into a culture that has
become so childish,
superficial, and complacent. Make your life count, make your writing count.
Write every day like it’s your last. Write every book like it’s your last. Carpe diem, carpe librum.

DAMN! What a post. Loved it, and brought back memories of my own expat days, long long ago. Dig your writing style too, definitely where the beef is. Enjoy yourself in one of the great lands of the LBFMs.

For the rest of yous, many sincere thanks for the positive, encouraging feedback.

And yes, that's me on the mic. Shanghai (and my unreliable voice) did its best to make a decent recording impossible, but I think it turned out pretty well for a cheap mic and an old laptop.

For anyone interested, I used a Blue Microphones Yeti USB mic, Audacity and Cubase. And as I mentioned in the text, the cover for Default was designed by the (highly recommended) http://awesomebookcovers.com and the cover for Writing an Expat Novel I had made in a few hours by Jimmy Gibbs on http://fiverr.com

I can relate to this, having just returned from living abroad for 35 years in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sir Lanka, Thailand, Italy, and Greece. My first novel and short story collection were mainly set in India. No exaggeration - I write science fiction and fantasy, but when you have science fiction and fantasy set in a place like India it's like an alien culture within an alien culture - one rabbit hole after another. You live and breathe alien thoughts. Don't get me wrong - Indians are amazing, thoughtful, helpful, intelligent people - but when you juxtapose U.S. culture and Indian culture you have ready-made conflict.

Congrats, Anjo. As a self-published author, I'm used to learning crafts by myself in order to avoid paying too much. I had specialized one year in radio when I was at a journalist school, and as an indie author, I recorded the first chapter of one of my novels.

From these two past experiences, I can say that the art of speaking, and the voice in itself, is much more innate than acquired. You have it, or you don't. I'm in the second case, and when I recorded the first chapter, the time I spent to obtain something just barely passable was definitely not worth it.

Thank you, Alan. I briefly considered trying my hand at ebook narration. But after the experience of this one simple recording, I'm not so sure.

There are only a random few hours in any given day when my voice does what I want it to do. It seems to be dependent on how much sleep I had, the quality of sleep, the time of day, and the amount of normal daily stress I've had. And usually the best time is during the morning commute and work hours.

Professional voice training would probably be a big help. But anyway, trying to record anything with the low noise floor levels required for a proper audiobook would be nearly impossible in Shanghai. (And that's not even considering things like the PLA showing up to kick me out.)

If Hemingway shot a few SS, armed or otherwise - and that's a big if, considering Hemingway himself couldn't keep the number of Germans he'd supposedly killed straight - that still has nut-all to do with his writing. Celine told a few whoppers about his own wartime service as we'll. I'll take the drunk American over the anti-Semitic Frenchman any day.

Fantastic! Most entertaining guest blog I've read on here, which also made me laugh out loud at times, which is near to a miracle as I was feeling so down I thought only Konrath could lighten my mood. LORD KONRATH! Love it! Especially as I am deep in a project about LORD Byron.

Anjo - every word in this blog of yours screams out TALENT! The Big Time awaits you. And now I can't wait to download DEFAULT and get some more.